The people have spoken: let the EPA do its job

Yesterday, members of Rep. Fred Upton’s (R-Mich.) House Energy and Commerce Committee held their first hearing on Chair Upton’s proposal to block the Environmental Protection Agency from updating Clean Air Act safeguards to protect our health from life-threatening carbon pollution. (Hat tip and bow to EPA chief Lisa Jackson who withstood hours of dirty air extremism from panel members, and didn’t give one inch on the EPA’s obligation to protect public health by limiting carbon pollution.)

But what about the views of the voters in the districts of specific members of Congress? Say, voters in Upton’s district? Do they support blocking the EPA, as their own representative is proposing? What about voters in the districts of other committee members who will have to vote on blocking the EPA in coming weeks?

Turns out, new polling shows that voters Upton’s are not at all behind him on this, and the voters in eight other districts we looked at aren’t either. Get the release here.

In fact, nearly two-thirds of Upton’s own constituents oppose his bill to block EPA from limiting carbon pollution:

Click for a larger version.

Here’s a quick scan of the Upton results:

67 percent — including 60 percent of Republicans — agreed with the statement that “Congress should let the EPA do its job,” as opposed to the minority who believe that “Congress should decide” what actions are taken to curb carbon pollution.

61 percent say that “EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect the air and water.”